Beastie Boy Adam Yauch "Strong and Hopeful" at Beating Cancer

When he was diagnosed with cancer this summer, Adam Yauch understandably needed some time off to recover and heal. Naturally, this meant that the release date for the Beastie Boys' anticipated Hot Sauce Committee LP was moved.

Now, in a letter to fans, Yauch explains that he feels as if he's beating his cancer and is ready to get the ball rolling with the Beastie Boys again. In the letter, he describes an overwhelming sense of optimism about his health, and describes a recent experience with some Tibetan doctors.

Rather than paraphrase, here's Yauch's full statement:

hey all,

so i just got back from dharamsala, india. went over there to see some tibetan doctors, but as it worked out, the Dalai Lama was giving a 3 day teaching, so i was able to attend that as well.

i'm feeling healthy, strong and hopeful that i've beaten this thing, but of course time will tell. i'm taking tibetan medicine and at the recommendation of the tibetan doctors i've been eating a vegan/organic diet, which surprisingly enough was harder to do in india than it is now that i'm back home. here i can just shop for the right food and cook... a lot easier than depending on restaurants.

when i was in india i visited an ani gompa (a nunnery) called jamyang choling. they did a puja (religious ceremony) for me to help me get well. one nun said to me "we do prayers and then you are better." so i've got that going for me, which is nice.

i will put a link to their web site (below) but it doesn't do justice to how amazing it is to actually go there and hang out with them. i sponsor a few nuns at jamyang choling. there are about 125 nuns there now and more keep joining. when i first met them i think there were only 13 and they were living in some abandoned cow sheds. then they bought some land with some donations, and with more donations they started building rooms for housing, classrooms, a prayer hall, 2 stoopas..... they now live on a beautiful complex in this incredibly lush, peaceful patch of land in lower dharamsala. cows walking around, birds singing, they are growing mangoes and bananas, and they have a whole garden where they grow herbs and vegetables.

i asked how many nuns still need sponsorship. they said 50. it's about $350 a year to sponsor a nun if you are interested.

http://www.jamchoebuddhistdialectics.org/

we have not set a new release date for the record yet, but i'm hoping it'll be in the first half of next year. looking forward to that, but in the meantime, i'm just enjoying a little downtime in massachusetts, taking walks in the woods and hanging out with the family.... still doing a little work related to oscilloscope, watching screeners and attending some screenings, but for the most part, just laying low.

if you are interested i'll send out some little updates every now and then on the oscilloscope twitter account.

http://twitter.com/oscopelabs

thanks again for all of the well wishes and prayers, and the letters were great too, brought a smile to my face reading them.